If I were to construct this team made of UConn players in, or around their prime. How would they do?
Ray Allen ----- Ben Gordon
Kemba Walker ----- Shabazz Napier
RIP ---- Caron Butler
Andre Drummond ---- Rudy Gay
Cliff Robison ---- Emeka Okafor
Reserves: Donyell Marshall, Kevin Freeman, Chris Smith, Rashad Anderson
I think this team would do very well this year in the NBA.
Not very good, I'm afraid. Basketball Reference lists the top 40 players to come out of UConn, but it also looks like the prime for most UConn's players were their college years, which paved their way into The Association. Frankly, Georgetown is a better debate, but they are remarkably thin in the backcourt after Iverson and Sleepy Floyd.
The leaders in terms of games played are:
Cliff Robinson
Ray Allen
Rudy Gay
Donyell Marshall
Richard Hamilton
Sub in Caron Butler for Marshall when sorting by Minutes played.
Highest draft picks were:
Hasheem Thabeet
Emeka Okafor
Ben Gordon
Donyell Marshall
Ray Allen
Kemba Walker is the only point guard in the top 10 for either minutes or games played.
An all-time-in-their-prime-UConn NBA team would probably looks like:
PG: Walker, Ollie
SG: Allen, Gordon
SF: Gay, Hamilton
PF: Robinson, Donyell Marshall
C: Drummond, Okafor.
Of the 10, only Allen is/will be a Hall of Famer, and no one else is particularly close, including Drummond or Walker, for whom the ridiculous premise was put forth that he only had to put up 7 or 8 Hall of Fame caliber seasons from 2019/20-2027/28 (i.e. the 8 subsequent season).
Only Allen and Hamilton contributed significantly to a Championship team (Butler played 29 games and 0 in the playoffs for Dallas in 2011) and Ollie didn't shoot 3 pointers, a must in today's NBA off the bench, though Gordon would have more than made up for him.
It's a flawed argument to be sure, but now that I went through this exercise, perhaps UConn is not considered a "Blue Blood" by many because their players are not among the greatest in NBA history.